White House Tape Recycling Possibly Erased Emails 251
Pojut points us to a Washington Post story which details the White House's admission that it routinely recycled backup tapes from 2001 to 2003, possibly destroying e-mail records from that time period. While the tapes are being analyzed to determine if any of the data can be recovered, the White House also indicated that some e-mail through 2005 may not have been preserved. We discussed the beginnings of this investigation a few months ago. From the Post:
"During the period in question, the Bush presidency faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq war, the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed."
Plausible incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
Plausible incompetence is just as useful a smokescreen as plausible deniability.
White House statement... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
A mobster is on trial for multiple murders. The prosecutor, frustrated he may lose the case because of the ease with which the mobster and his associates lie under oath, finally tries to threaten him on witness stand:
DA (sternly): "Sir, are you aware of the penalty for perjury in this state?"
Mobster (smugly): "It's less than the penalty for murder, isn't it?"
Too bad for us there won't even be a penalty for perjury.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of Presidential Idol! Who will be eliminated this week? Call in and vote for your favorite!"
Implausible (Score:5, Insightful)
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They should subpoena the NSA. Surely *they* have copies..
Re:Is it possible to have a private conversation? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's in a name? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pojut points us to a Washington Post story which details the Kremlin's admission that it routinely recycled backup tapes from 2001 to 2003, possibly destroying e-mail records from that time period. While the tapes are being analyzed to determine if any of the data can be recovered, the Kremlin also indicated that some e-mail through 2005 may not have been preserved. We discussed the beginnings of this investigation a few months ago. From the Post:
"During the period in question, the Putin administration faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Chechnya war, the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, as well as murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvenko. Kremlin spokesman Tony "Fat Knuckles" Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed."
not-so-plausible deniability (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, they only had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. But we are supposed to believe it was all an accident. Also we are supposed to believe that years worth of email disappears for the White House and no one notices until congress asks for it. Most places I have worked as a sysadmin if everyone's old email disappeared in multi-month/year blocks my phone would be ringing within the hour.
Re:Before you complain ... (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record I do have all my emails archived dating back to before 2000... on a $1 CDROM. "Losing" emails right around the period when the administration were busy lying their pants off about Iraq is pretty damn suspicious.
STFU (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frosty Piss says... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll agree to the 2004 election having some irregularities that could/should have been investigated/punished better, but I'm also pretty confident that a hell of a lot of people voted for him in that election too.
As for your last comment, remember that your circle of friends and acquitances are a self-selected sample, and not representative of the population at large down there
Re:Is it possible to have a private conversation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many companies (like Microsoft) are trying to keep email useful by making it company policy that email is not preserved.
Once you have something that could be preserved... the temptation is powerful to require people to preserve it, and thereby stifle it's use.
Imagine what will happen once all phone conversations could be preserved. With all calls going over VOIP systems on computers, it's only a matter of time before it happens.
The computer ate my homework (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not... (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course it wasn't deliberate! Destroying evidence is standard procedure.
Re:Is it possible to have a private conversation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The computer ate my homework (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't be so sure; it's been a pretty steady decline over the last half century and it might just continue like that. Even a loser like Bush Sr. looks pretty good compared to his son.
Re:Is it possible to have a private conversation? (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, routine deletion of data such as email
Re:Before you complain ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me see your e-mails from 2001-2003. "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone."
We are all sinners, that doesn't excuse the criminals currently inhabiting the white house.
I seiously doubt you'll find anything in my email in that time period that compares with colluding with Exon to financially rape the American public, starting a false war, ignoring dire threats of terrorism resulting in a national disaster, or selling the nation to Halliburton wholesale. Of course there may in fact be an embarrassing note or two in my save email folder, and I'm again just guessing, nothing that would justify my being stood up against a wall and shot.
I can't imagine the current administration can make the same claim.
Re:Before you complain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Backup tapes get recyled ALL THE TIME (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I worked on this during the Clinton Administrat (Score:2, Insightful)
You do put a rather ludicrous twist on the issue, though. Burger destroyed the records to 'protect' them from the Bushies?
Clearly you've taken sides. I was just maintaining that the Clintonites were just as bad a gang of crooks as the Bushies.
Re:Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but irrelevant. You're arguing that the cost of buying and storing tape media exceeds the probability that they'll contain something valuable. I'm saying (a) this is not true and (b) recycling tapes is illegal and everybody involved in this know it.
You can fit a lot of "Meeting at the Oval Office at 3:00pm" on a 400GB tape, which you can buy for about eighty bucks. If, doing incremental backups, you use one 400GB (native) tape every day, you need fewer than 3000 tapes. This is admittedly a lot of tapes, and will set you back over a quarter of a million dollars. However, those tapes would only take a tiny corner of the Presidential Library, on which maybe one or two hundred million dollars will be spent. It's not unreasonable to spend a quarter of a percent or less of that cost to ensure there is a complete record, which admittedly does contain things like meeting announcements (valuable) and invitations to lunch (maybe not valuable), but also contain things like policy debates.
Thinking of it on an IT level, you'd keep everything because (A) it's not that expensive relative to even the historical value and (B) you'd be breaking the law otherwise. You don't blow of Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA because it's not convenient. The law says you retain everything, and history says you retain everything. This was a deliberate crime which is only justifiable if you need to cover worse crimes.
In fact (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
It is clear when an administration destroys evidence of it's actions it is doing so to hide criminal and treasonous activities.
The person who destroyed those records should be held fully accountable, and as those records could show evidence of treasonous activities so they should be charged with treason, whether or not they testify against the person in the administration who gave orders to destroy a legal record of government activity.
Re:In fact (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Come Out of Your Closet, "Conservatives" (Score:4, Insightful)
That's part of the problem with this Democracy. A turd gets elected (twice) and it's a game of fingerpointing, blaming the other 'team' for everything. This is not football.
I, as a registered Republican (but not one who has ever even comes close to voting a straight ticket) voted for Bush on the first go-around, and against him on the second.
The Democrat bastards I helped vote into office on the second go-around appear to be every bit as colluding, impotent and worthless as the last lot of idiots on the other side of the aisle.
It's ok, though. You don't like the way things are going? Just blame the party you're not a part of (right or wrong) and hang the rest on everyone else. Thou dost protest too much.
You know, we can keep ourselves busy bitching, or getting out there and doing something about it. The national politicians, almost without exception start their careers at the local and state level. In addition to writing letters to the people currently holding Federal office, be proactive in your state and community to make sure the people presently getting elected at the State and local levels are the kinds of people you might eventually want on the Hill or in the White House.
Also, get involved with whatever party your a member of, and start actively setting standards and goals at the lowest levels of the party.
Not many people are happy with this administration, and I'm certainly not either. But every moment spent bitching, complaining and blaming is time detracted from getting out there and making a difference.
For what it's worth, the current crop of buffoons vying for the White House are nearly imperceptible from the last bunch of idiots. With the possible exception of John Edwards.
But that's fine. We can just all sit back and treat this like the Super Bowl, throwing popcorn at the TV when our guy wins or loses, and then quite possibly spending the next four years wishing things had gone differently, passing our time with childish infighting.
Re:I worked on this during the Clinton Administrat (Score:3, Insightful)
Have we all forgotten Bush's FIRST ACT as President?
To secure the papers from his father's administration, which were about to become public as mandated by law?
In their minds - they have every right to TAX us, in order to BRIBE the Telecom (Government Granted) Monopolies, to gather all of our personal electronic communications, for them to indefinitely archive, peruse, and examine, without any oversight, review, or accountability, and we have NO right, to lawfully subpoena evidence from them when there is clear probably cause of massive lawbreaking on their part.
America got precisely the government we chose. Precisely the government we deserve.
Pay attention next time?